Surprise: Sir

“I need you to hurt me!” she said.

Then she waited.

I looked at Marta’s downcast head. As she was sitting on my lap, facing me, with my cock inside her and her arms around me, I grasped her arms and gently pulled them from behind me, then took her hands in mine, turning the palms up. I wanted to look at something I’d noticed earlier, but hadn’t paid much attention to.

She tried to pull her arms away, but I held them firmly.

There were puckered, white lines on both arms, parallel to her wrists, that looked like, and almost certainly were, scars, probably produced with a razor blade.

“You self-harm,” I stated quietly.

She flushed and started to struggle.

“Stop it,” I said, dropping my voice even more, and speaking almost in a whisper.

She stopped as if struck, and sagged, letting me hold her arms.

“Yes,” she said in a bitter voice, “I self-harm. It’s such a neat little phrase.”

She looked up, bitterness in her face. “There’s been no one to do it for me.” Her eyes had tears in them again.

“And I am such a bitch, no, a cunt, an awful, hateful person, so consumed by my selfish need to know that I drive people away from me. I have no friends, most of my colleagues loathe me, as you so kindly noted. I live alone, with my work, my exercise, and my piano. It’s an empty, painful, lonely life, and I hate it!”

She hung her head and looked down at her arms.

“I hate me…”

The vehemence in her voice was shocking.

Then, in a voice I could barely hear, “… I should be dead.”

I continued to hold onto her, then bent over and kissed her arms along the scars, first left arm, then right.

I had no idea what to say, but knew I had to say something.

“Marta, look at me, please.” She didn’t.

“Marta, I can ask you, or I can order you, please look up.”

There was a long pause. “Order me,” she whispered.

My jaw muscles tightened. “Marta,” I said in a louder voice, “Look at me!”

She looked up.

“Everything you just said may have been true, but no longer. If you’ll allow me, I will show you that you are not a bitch, you are not awful, you are not hateful.

“You are afraid, you are lonely, and you most definitely are in pain. But I will not allow that to continue! If you are truly as loathsome as you say, then I am just as loathsome because I admire you tremendously, and, as I said, I believe that I am falling in love with you.”

I paused a long time, looking at her, looking into her eyes, and watching the tears roll steadily, unheeded, down her face. I don’t ever recall seeing someone so unhappy.

I was trying to think, but thinking seemed impossible. I finally gave up, even though thinking had always been the way I cut through life. I decided I had to, just this once, forget thinking, and do what I wanted to do.

“Will you marry me?”

 Astonishment: Marta

It felt as if my heart stopped. I know my mouth dropped open. I just sat there, dumbfounded, completely at a loss of what to say.

“A simple ‘yes’ will do,” he said gently.

“You can’t be serious,” I eventually said. “I don’t even know your name. I know nothing about you. You might still be a stalker, or an axe murderer, or a rapist, or…”

“Or none of those things. And if you think you should be dead, do any of those things matter? But I’m not any of those things. I believe – I hope – that I am someone who can help you become you a person you can love, just as I hope you are the person who can make me whole.

“Marta Maria Esteban Rabinovich, will you marry me?”

Many Voices: Sir

My heart was racing. What the fuck was I doing? I barely knew this woman, and she didn’t know me. What if she decided I was one of those fools she didn’t suffer gladly? What if she thought I was intellectually beneath her. What if she got bored with me, or didn’t like the way I lived, or thought I was just trying to exploit her?

What if she just doesn’t like me?

Meanwhile, she sat there gawking at me. That, at least, I could fix.

I leaned forward and said, “Kiss me. That’s not a request, that’s an order.”

She closed her mouth, then smiled and leaned forward, tears streaming down her face, and kissed me. It started slowly, then progressed to something much more rugged, and before I knew it, I had rolled her onto her back, uncrossed my legs, and was pushing hard inside her as she was pulling me in with her legs behind my back, and we were making rough, urgent, passionate love.

We had left The Well-Spring.

…

Later, we lay cuddled together, with her head on my shoulder.

“May I take some time to answer?” She asked, “or are you ordering me to decide right now?”

“Marta, I think you should wait before you decide. There are many things you need to know about me, things that may be important to you. But let that wait, if you will.”

We were quiet for a time. Then she said, “I don’t know quite how to say this, or even why I want to, but I need you to hurt me even more now than I did before. As if I need to prove to you that I deserve to be punished. As if I won’t be worthy of you if you don’t punish me.

“And – forgive me – but I get wet whenever I even think about you hurting me.”

Now I was quiet. And then, “And when you said that, my cock let me know that it wanted me to hurt you, it thought that was a great idea. At the same time, the part of me that just asked you to marry me felt ashamed, as if I were besmirching this person I admire so much.”

“So, am I sick, are you sick, or are we both sick?” she asked.

I chuckled, and said, “Neither one of us is sick. You’ve heard about the BDSM spectrum?”

She nodded, “But I don’t know much about it. I haven’t had sex in many years, and it was never very good for me. You call me a slut, and you make me feel like one – which I like! – but truthfully, sex doesn’t appeal to me.”

I looked down at her and quirked an eyebrow. She had the grace to blush.

“Correction: It didn’t appeal to me. Now I find that I can’t stop thinking about your cock…”

She reached over and gently put her hand around my stiffening phallus.

“… and at the same time, feeling an overwhelming desire for pain, as if the two feelings are intertwined. I find it – confusing. Disturbing. As if there are two people within me.”

“There are at least two people, and probably more inside that brilliant little head of yours,” I said.

She put her chin on her hand that was resting on my chest and looked up quizzically at me.

“We tend to think of the mind as unitary – just one thing – and we think of our daytime, ‘normal’ personality as being that one thing. Yet, we know, from direct experience, that it’s not that simple.

“We know, for instance, that there is a subconscious that we can’t access directly. We know we have emotions that don’t dovetail neatly into a simple personality package, so we have conflicting emotions. And we have experienced different parts of the mind acting at the same time, often working against each other.

“For instance, occasionally, when I’m eating, I’ll pick up a glass and raise it to my mouth, then turn my head at the same time, so that the glass either hits the top or side of my mouth, or doesn’t quite make it all the way to my mouth, so that I miss and spill some of the drink. Or sometimes, I’ll be walking from one room to another, think about something unrelated, pull the door open, then walk right into it, hitting my knee or my head.

“I think this might be the right brain and left brain not being completely in synch with each other.

“Or, have you ever been walking along a cliff, and have the thought pop into your mind that you could just step off the edge, and found that thought almost irresistible, even as another part of your mind is shouting, ‘Bad idea! BAD IDEA!’

“The same kinds of things are true with the way we think about our desires, pleasure and pain. For instance, after we’ve made love – or fucked – I find myself thinking, ‘I’d love to force her to suck and lick the cum off my cock, to degrade her, and embarrass her.’ And I simultaneously find that shocking – which somehow makes it even more attractive. It’s weird, almost like two or more people talking to me at the same time.

“That’s what you’re experiencing. There is more than one person – or personality – inside your head. Count on it.”

She got a faraway look in her eyes, then grinned, looked at me and said, “So, is that your long-winded, mansplaining way of giving yourself permission to get your rocks off by hurting me? Because you already have my permission to do exactly that. Hint, hint…”

“Why you little slut!”

She scrambled off the bed, giggling, and I raced after her…

…

Later, we were talking more seriously.

“Look, I know you want me to hurt you, but we need a safe word. Or words.”

She sighed. “I don’t need you to stop. I want you to keep going.”

Angrily I said, “This is serious, Marta. I have to be able to trust you to signal me to stop so I know I’m not going too far. I want to hurt you, but I don’t want to harm you. If you can’t do that, we can’t play, period.”

“Fine. Let’s go with the traditional ‘red light’ if I really want you to stop. But don’t expect to hear it.”

“Wanna bet? And say ‘yellow light’ if you want me to pause, or step out of role-playing to discuss what’s happening.”

“And what do I say if I want more?” she asked.

I snorted. “If you think you can take more, then say ‘green light.’ OK?”

She nodded, with her eyes blandly innocent. “Green light. Got it.”

I got even angrier, grabbed her chin and said, “Don’t screw around, Marta. This is important. I don’t know your tolerance for pain. I don’t know how sensitive or delicate you are. I’ve never done what I’m about to do to you to anyone else. If you won’t promise me you will use these signals if you need or want them, then we’re done here and you can go home.”

She looked at me, then nodded. “I promise. If I need you to stop, I promise I’ll say so.” she paused, “But Sir, please believe me when I say that I want you to hurt me, to push me to the edge, to punish me. I don’t know why I need this, but…” she swallowed, “But I do.”

Then she looked up and grinned, “And I’ll bet you the answer to your question that you can’t push me that far.”

“No bet. But I’ll try.” And he grinned a nasty grin.

She stared at him, wondering if this had really been a good move on her part. And she found she was suddenly wetter, much wetter.

Preparations: Sir

I had too many plans and ideas in my head, all struggling to get out at the same time. I was used to coping with too much going on in my head at one time, though, and knew what to do, but what to do with Marta while I did it?

Then I looked at her. “OK, slut, we’re going to start. Lie down, spread-eagled, on the bed again. This is going to take some preparation.” I stood up.

She lay the towel down beneath her, then spread it out and moved cautiously around to get comfortable, spreading her arms and legs wide.

I picked up the sleep mask and put it back over her eyes. “Now, I want you to play with yourself, including finger fucking your cunt, and massaging both your G-spot and your clit. I want you to get nice and hot and wet, I want you to get as close as you can to climaxing, but you must not, under any circumstances, cum. Do you understand?”

She had her legs spread, and although she blushed deeply, she was already starting to rub the fingers of one hand up and down her slit. I could see she was already quite wet.

“Yes, Sir. Play with myself, but I am not to cum.”

“Right. Now I have some preparations to make, and this will take some time, but you are not to stop, and you are not to cum. Get it?”

She nodded slowly.

Then I put my bathrobe on again and went off to my office, where I sat down, flipped open my laptop, and started to just dump my ideas onto the page of a word processing document, noting both things I might do, and a separate list of what things I would need to do them.

Next, I edited and organized the notes into the best possible order to create a progression of pain, as near as I could imagine, and created a separate list of the equipment and materials I would need. I was improvising, because I only had one sex toy in the condo, a simple vibrator, and hadn’t planned this beforehand, but it was coming together quite nicely.

This took almost fifteen minutes. I printed out both documents, picked up the equipment list, then started gathering things, some from the living room, many from the kitchen, and finally going to my locked office closet to retrieve Marta’s smartphone from her purse. Fortunately, she owned the same kind as I did, so I was familiar with how it worked.

The phone would be the hard part as I was either going to have to ask for her login password, guess it myself, or go to plan B, which I didn’t want to do. I stood still, then decided to try to guess the six digits of her password. I thought for a moment, and tried the most obvious number (for a physicist), which didn’t work, then the second most obvious, which also didn’t work, then the third, which, thankfully, did the trick. I counted myself lucky, but also decided that I would have to teach her about cybersecurity.

I looked at her settings to check how much storage space she had (bags of it!), then set up a separate album for the pictures I was going to take in her photo app, and finally, found, and hooked up, a small, Bluetooth device from my office that would allow me to control the camera remotely, without having to touch the smartphone. Next, I made sure that the camera would make the click sound when it was triggered. I wanted her to hear it when the camera took a picture.

Finally, I moved and set up a card table next to the bed, trying not to be distracted by Marta’s growing moans, and making no effort to cover the sounds of my preparations. I wanted her to wonder what the hell I was doing.

Once I organized things on the card table and nightstand by my bed, I got out a tripod that I sometimes used with my smartphone, put it on a bench that I dragged in from the living room to the foot of the bed, and set up the camera so it had a clear, full-length view of her as she was finger fucking herself. I also changed the settings so the phone wouldn’t go to sleep on its own.

I got down, then took a deep, slightly ragged breath, and looked around, mentally rehearsing what I was going to do, consulting my agenda, and hoping I hadn’t forgotten anything. Then I finally stopped and looked at Marta.

Oh my! My prick, which had been distracted by all of my planning and organizing, now stiffened up. She was drop-dead gorgeous, and watching her lying there, writhing, naked, and masturbating, now using both hands, made me want to forget the whole thing and just fuck her.

But I had promises to keep, as the poem goes…

Action! Marta

I was finding it really hard to concentrate.

On the one hand, Sir went quiet for what seemed like an age, then started bustling around, moving things, dragging furniture, and clinking things together, all very mysterious. The blindfold prevented me from seeing what the hell he was doing, so I spent the time trying to figure out what going on from sound alone. It was driving me crazy.

On the other hand, my cunt was driving me crazy as well. I was following his instructions as best I could, and was getting pretty close to the point where I would either have to cum, or stop. I wasn’t sure I could keep going without cumming, even if I just stroked myself around the edges. I was breathing hard, squirming involuntarily, and my whole body felt unnaturally sensitive and tingly, as if a touch anywhere could tip me over the edge. I was trying not to moan, but that wasn’t working so well, either.

All told, I felt like a mess.

Then, the room went quiet. I strained to hear anything, but there was nothing.

Then, a hand grabbed one of my ankles and something was attached to it, softer and wider than before, but just as secure. I didn’t struggle, but didn’t cooperate, either. This was repeated on the other ankle.

Then, someone (I assume it was Sir), climbed onto the bed, and tied my left hand around the wrist with something that felt like a wide ribbon. He ran the ribbon under my back, then grabbed my other wrist, and tied it as well. My hands were now tied together, but one on each side of my body, with the ribbon-thing barely noticeable flat against my back. I couldn’t reach anything in front of me, and my arms forced my back up slightly, pushing my tits up.

Next, he lifted my ass slightly (and that hurt!), and shoved a pillow under it, adjusted the pillow, then dropped me back onto it. My legs were now fixed wide apart with my knees slightly bent from my ass being on the pillow, my hands were fixed underneath my midsection, and my cunt was elevated, wide open, sopping wet, and on display.

There was a pause, and then I heard a click, unmistakeably a camera. I panicked then, started to struggle, and opened my mouth to speak, to shout “red light”, then stopped myself. Much as I didn’t want to find photos of myself posted on the Internet, I didn’t want to give in, either, so I shut my mouth and clamped it closed, turning my head away from the sound.

Click

I felt myself blushing furiously, and feeling that I was being taken advantage of.

Then I heard a slow, steady series of clicks, at regular intervals, and realized the camera was now set to go off regularly, on its own.

It occurred to me that he was punishing me in a way that I hadn’t expected. I also realized that I was naked, disheveled, and was wearing a sleep mask. The odds of anyone recognizing me (assuming they perused porn sites) were pretty small, especially as I was widely known, behind my back and often to my face, as the Ice Queen. No one would credit it was me.

With that, I started to relax – and realized that, if anything, I was even wetter than before. I blushed again, but it was clear that the idea of being on display appealed to me in a way that I might feel ashamed of, but that turned me on as well.

The bed sagged next to me, and I heard Sir whisper in my ear, “Are you sure you want to be punished?”

I licked my lips, and said, “Yes, Sir. I need to hurt, and I really need to cum. Please, punish me, Sir. I should be disciplined for being a slut, and for being the cunt that I am.”

There was silence, then he leaned down and lightly kissed my lips. “You have done nothing that deserves punishment, but I find I really want to. God help me, I am going to hurt you. Badly.”

He moved off the bed, then crawled up between my legs, then carefully and gradually pushed something hard, thick, and slick into my cunt. A vibrator? But it wasn’t vibrating.

Then he pushed a well-lubricated finger up my ass. He gently but firmly rotated it and moved it around in a circle, widening the opening. I tried hard to relax, at which point he put a second finger in, rotating them both around my asshole, and gently spreading them to widen the opening.

He surprised me again when he pushed his fingers apart, and pushed something else into my ass, holding the opening wide enough, and gradually withdrawing his fingers. He put a couple of inches of whatever it was inside of me, then said, “You will keep this inside you, slut, or I will use force to push it back in. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir.”

It felt strange, and slightly warm, almost like a cock, but not. But it wasn’t a dildo or anything plastic or hard. I squeezed it slightly; it was firm but springy.

Then he moved up to my chest on the right side of my body. I heard something clink, then felt something cool being brushed around the tip of my right tit. At first, it just felt cool, then I started to feel it getting warmer. It was – different. Not painful, but warm, tingling. Odd.

He moved over to the other side of the bed, and repeated the process, with the same results. Then he got off the bed, just as I heard another click.

Then silence. I felt my tits getting warmer, then caught a whiff of something savory. The heat from my tits started to produce an echo in my cunt, and I started to wriggle, the steady warming sensation seeming to make a direct connection from my breasts to my cunt.

Then, without warning, he spread my cunt lips, and I felt the same brush, this time on my clit. This time the heat hit much harder, and I writhed a bit, then more as it built. It wasn’t painful, quite, but it was an almost-unpleasant tingling, and the heat seemed to keep building, but slowly. I wondered if he was going to apply the same treatment to my cunt, and wasn’t sure if I hoped he would, or hoped he wouldn’t.

Click

Nothing further happened, aside from the tingle growing stronger, but slowly. I was starting to writhe as I felt turned on in a way I had never felt before. The combination of my earlier masturbation, the embarrassment of being photographed while tied and helpless, the thing in my cunt, and the slowly growing heat was definitely moving me back towards a climax.

“I’m going to cum soon, Sir!”

I was overstating it a bit, but not by all that much.

“No, you won’t. If you do, I will stop everything, and let you cool off, then start again. So, no, you will not cum. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir, I’m just not sure I can avoid it. Please, Sir, let me cum.”

There was a pause, then he said, “How do your tits and clit feel?”

I was having trouble concentrating, and thought that this was very much a “Who cares?” kind of question, but said, “My tits are warm and tingly, my clit is, uh, hot and tingly. What did you put on them?”

There was no answer. Instead, I felt something cold and slightly rough grab my left tit hard, and twist it. There was an alcohol smell. He wasn’t just trying to twist my tit. It was almost as if he was trying to – clean it? Then he did the same thing to the tit on the other side.

Then he moved down to my clit.

When he touched my clit, I jerked. Not only was my clit extremely sensitive at this point, but it was suddenly hot and cold and stung from whatever he was touching it with.

Fortunately, he didn’t take long, and while I was still really turned on, the heat that had been building on my clit was no longer there.

Then, nothing.

Next, I heard him moving, I heard him step up onto something, then I heard a ba-ding and realized he’d started recording a video. I swallowed and turned my head, blushing again. I wondered who was going to wind up watching, but at this point, I wasn’t sure I cared. I felt really turned on and couldn’t help but wriggle.

Then he got onto the bed between my legs. Shortly after that, the hard thing in my cunt started to vibrate gently. Next, I heard him doing something, but wasn’t sure what, but the thing hanging out of my ass was being moved slightly. Then, all at once, he shoved the fake cock all the way into my ass, and my asshole and insides felt like they’d caught fire. I bucked and strained at my bonds, and started thrashing around.

I found I was trying to push this cock-thing out of my ass, but it was difficult as my ass kept clenching and unclenching. He moved and picked up something, then used two fingers to spread my asshole, and pushed something cold and hard, but tapered, with the big end inside me, and the rest sticking out. And it had that liquid fire on it, too, but there was no way I could dislodge it, and my anus was not only on fire, but kept clenching around this thing, whatever it was, getting another coating of liquid fire.

Next, he moved over and trapped my waist on the right side with the weight of his body, then I felt a cool liquid being brushed on my right tit – and then it caught fire!

I was groaning loudly, and straining at the bonds on my hands and ankles, but they defeated me. He moved over to the other side, held me down with his body weight, and brushed the cool liquid over my left tit – and it caught fire!

By now I was starting to scream, so he moved up, caught my head with one arm, and stuffed a washcloth into my mouth.

“Remember, if you want me to stop, you grunt three times,” He whispered.

Instead, I started shouting at the top of my voice, knowing it would be muffled. Then he moved down my body, put his weight on my left hip. The vibrator in my cunt suddenly kicked into high gear. Then his weight shifted as he reached for something.

I knew what was coming next, but I was powerless to stop it.

He brushed liquid on my clit, and purest agony blossomed from it, much worse than on my tits!

I was writhing and bucking, straining at my bonds, and screaming – and then climaxed.

My body went rigid as I let out a long, sustained scream into the washcloth that was barely audible. I finally took another breath in and screamed again.

And then I climaxed again, only this time it was like a punch to the gut, my body went rigid, and I started trembling uncontrollably.

“I’m going to take the gag out of your mouth. If you’re going to scream, please do so quietly. I have neighbors to think of.”

Climax: Sir

I pulled the gag from her mouth and stepped back, partly to give her a chance to breathe, but also to make sure the camera was getting all of her. She could not stop moving, but kept shifting her ass from side to side, pulling at her arms and legs, and panting heavily. She was drooling saliva from her mouth, and cum from her cunt.

She was beautiful.

I leaned over and asked, very quietly, “Red light?”

She went rigid, straining with her whole body. Then, she took a deep breath, and, straining, said, very plainly, “Green light!” and closed her mouth with a snap.

“OK, but remember, you asked for it.” And I forced her mouth open and put the gag back in.

I looked down at her. Her tits were coated in habañero chili oil, and so was her clit, and the oversized, ballpark hot dog I had coated with it and shoved up her ass was being held in place by a carrot that had the green top cut off, then coated in more chili oil. The broad end was pushed in, and the rest of the carrot stuck obscenely out of her ass, like a vegetable cock. I’m sure the pictures would be quite humiliating.

I moved over to the table where I’d laid out my props, and picked up three old-style clothes pegs, the ones with the springs that clipped shut, that I used when camping. The three I’d selected had particularly tight springs, which is why I’d picked them.

Slowly, I moved one so that it just brushed her right tit, and gradually released it so it gripped her tit hard, sticking straight up. This set her off again, writhing and shouting into the gag. She flushed again, and I realized she’d just cum again.

Sweat beaded her face, and once she’d stopped straining so hard, I moved over to her other side to repeat the process, only this time, instead of releasing the clothespin gently, I let it close with a snap.

She screamed and arched her back, and was squirming, her hips pulling on the bonds on her legs, breathing unsteadily. I removed the gag, and said, “One clip to go,” emphasizing the “p” in 'clip.'

She thrashed her head back and forth, seemingly unwilling to speak.

“Red light?” I asked again.

She shook her head and said, “Please don’t put it on my clit, PLEASE don’t, PLEASE!”

“’Please,’ is not a magic word here. Get ready!”

I moved down so I was between her legs, pinning one leg with an arm and my weight, then held the clothes peg wide, and gently moved it so it was brushing the underside of her clit. She jerked, but couldn’t move more than an inch or so. I then very slowly and deliberately let the clothes peg close on her clit, allowing it to get tighter and tighter at a snail’s pace, drawing out the agony as long as I could. She groaned deep in her throat, with the pitch getting higher and higher as I released the tension holding the clothes peg open.

I had to lean on her legs to keep her from thrashing around while I did this. When the clip was completely closed, I stood up and stepped back, watching her writhe in agony, with deep moans emanating from her lips, alternating with gasps. The clothes pegs wiggled as she moved her body, increasing the pain, while the vibrator, on its highest setting, kept her cunt stimulated. And even the slightest movement started a new wave of rippling, agonized motion.

I just stood and watched. Time was my ally, and the video was rolling.

Exhaustion: Marta

The sensations were like an electric shock coursing through my body, tits to cunt to ass to clit to tits, while my whole body tingled. I had never, ever experienced anything like it. It was pure agony – and yet, my body seemed to yearn for it as I came again and again, each wave of pain seemingly starting another climax. Pain became pleasure, and pleasure, pain until they washed through me as one.

I quickly became exhausted and couldn’t take any more, so I shouted, “Red light, please, red light!”

Repair: James

I moved immediately, removing the clothes pegs, first from her clit, then her tits, moving down and pulling first the carrot and then the hot dog from her ass, dropping them on the towel, gently pulling the vibrator from her cunt and turning it off, then untying the cushioned restraints around her ankles, and pushing the mask from her eyes.

I quickly scooped her up, took her into the washroom, pushing the door open with my shoulder, and gently placed her into the deep, lukewarm, soapy water in the bathtub. I took a clean sponge on which I had squirted dish soap, and as gently as I could, washed her clit, tits, anus, and as far as I could reasonably reach up her back passage, repeating this several times. Then I untied her arms, and gently lifted her, soaking wet, from the tub, and laid her on a towel on the floor.

Next, I washed her tits, clit, and asshole again, this time in milk, very gently swabbing them with a milk-soaked washcloth. This would further relieve the irritation caused by the chili oil.

When I was done with the milk, I rubbed olive oil on the parts I had abused.

I used another towel to pat her dry.

Finally, I picked her up, wrapping her in the clean towel, and carried her back to the bed, put her delicately upon it, swept everything else off, climbed in next to her, pushed the auto control for the camera to stop the video, pulled the covers over us, then cuddled with her in spoons, and turned out the light.

I was scared to death I had gone too far, that I had harmed her, or, perhaps as bad, turned her against me.

I had done everything I could think of to comfort and soothe her. I just prayed it was enough.

I was falling much too hard for Marta to lose her now. Why the fuck had I pushed her so far? I had let my stupid prick lead me to this.

Idiot!

I finally closed my eyes, but sleep was elusive, and, when it finally did come, fitful.

Marta

I was a rag dog, and once I stopped moving, I fell instantly asleep.

For the first time that I could remember, I felt cared for.

My dreams were sweet.

To be continued…